Much like hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth or the receiver catching the Hail Mary as time expires, Cristina Gutiérrez achieved the rally raid version of a walk-off: she entered the twelfth and final stage of the 2024 Dakar Rally trailing Mitch Guthrie by twenty-five minutes and seven seconds, and she walked away with the Bedouin trophy and 36:46 on Guthrie.
Guthrie, on the heels of losing the 2023 World Rally-Raid Championship in the Challenger (formerly T3) class at the final round in October, had bad luck strike again at worst possible moment in Dakar. Shortly after starting the final leg, his car suddenly lost power when the turbocharger hose disconnected, causing his 25-minute gap on Gutiérrez to quickly evapourate. A gearbox failure in the closing thirty kilometres was the coup de grâce.
“We got towed to the finish so we still got second in the rally but it feels like last place with it going this way,” Guthrie commented. “Definitely sucks. Going to keep our heads high. That’s racing, but tough one to swallow.”
While Guthrie’s problems were certainly not what Gutiérrez expected, she was also not going to turn away when the door opened. By the end, she led a Red Bull-sponsored sweep of the top five and became the second woman to win a Dakar overall after Jutta Kleinschmidt won the 2001 race outright. She is also the first driver with both a Dakar win and an Extreme E championship, an overlap of series that includes nine others like Dakar Ultimate winner Carlos Sainz and third-placed Sébastien Loeb, who won the 2022 XE title alongside Gutiérrez.
It is also Gutiérrez’s first race win in the W2RC. Her last international rally raid victory, the 2021 Rally Kazakhstan, came in the series’ predecessor World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies en route to that year’s T3 title.
“Always, I try to fight until the finish,” said Gutiérrez. “We never knew what happened until the last kilometre. We pushed a lot in this stage because I knew that twenty-five minutes is a lot, but if something happened behind, you did never know. I knew here in the finish. I don’t know what happened, what is going to happen, but I’m very glad.”
Despite settling for second, Guthrie still exits Dakar as the W2RC leader as Gutiérrez is not registered for the championship.
Gutiérrez and Guthrie led a masterclass for the Taurus T3 Max, a joint collaboration between MCE-5 Development and Wevers Sport that won nine of twelve stages. Eryk Goczał claimed five of the first six stages until he and his uncle Michał Goczał were disqualified for using clutches made from composite materials; father Marek Goczał won Stage #1 but was forced to retire six stages later. The penalty allowed Guthrie to inherit the overall lead for much of the rally’s second half before losing it on the last day. The final four days were split by Taurus drivers Nicolás Cavigliasso and Marcelo Gastaldi.
The Challenger class is often dominated by Can-Am, but Taurus’ breakout meant they went from winning seven stages in 2023 to just one a year later courtesy of Francisco López Contardo. Rokas Baciuška, the reigning W2RC SSV champion, was the lead Can-Am in the overall in third ahead of López. Gutiérrez was previously with Can-Am before joining Taurus for 2024. 2023 Dakar winner Austin Jones was fifth.
Saleh Al-Saif won a stage for Overdrive’s OT3. WRC veteran Kris Meeke claimed the Prologue with the manufacturer but retired after a crash with Krzysztof Hołowczyc in the Chrono Stage destroyed his rollcage.
After winning two stages in 2023 including a podium sweep at one point, X-raid Yamaha struggled with mechanical issues at the start that quickly knocked them out of contention. Ignacio Casale assumed the Stage #4 win following Goczał’s disqualification, but elected to sit out the second half of the rally.
Lukas Lauda, son of F1 legend Niki Lauda, finished fifteenth in his Dakar début.
Challenger overall results
| Finish | Number | Driver | Co-Driver | Team | Time | Margin |
| 1 | 306 | Cristina Gutiérrez* | Pablo Moreno Huete | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 53:59:47 | Leader |
| 2 | 303 | Mitch Guthrie | Kellon Walch | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 54:36:33 | + 36:46 |
| 3 | 300 | Rokas Baciuška | Oriol Vidal | Red Bull Can-Am Factory Racing | 54:58:34 | + 58:47 |
| 4 | 301 | Francisco López Contardo* | Juan Pablo Latrach | Red Bull Can-Am Factory Racing | 55:11:07 | + 1:11:20 |
| 5 | 305 | Austin Jones | Gustavo Gugelmin | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 55:44:34 | + 1:44:47 |
| 6 | 311 | Saleh Al-Saif* | Nasser Al-Kuwari | Dark Horse Team | 57:11:14 | + 3:11:27 |
| 7 | 318 | Marcelo Gastaldi | Carlos Sachs | BBR Motorsport | 57:53:35 | + 3:53:48 |
| 8 | 315 | Ricardo Porém | Augusto Sanz | MMP Compétition | 58:46:29 | + 4:46:42 |
| 9 | 312 | Nicolás Cavigliasso | Valentina Pertegarini | Wevers Sport | 60:36:06 | + 6:36:19 |
| 10 | 336 | Paul Spierings* | Jan Pieter van der Stelt | Dakar Team Spierings RaceArt | 61:38:22 | + 7:38:35 |
| 11 | 338 | Oscar Santos Peralta* | Lourival Roldan | South Racing Can-Am | 64:32:45 | + 10:32:58 |
| 12 | 324 | Pedro Peñate Muñoz* | Rosa Romero Font | TH-Trucks Team | 64:50:39 | + 10:50:52 |
| 13 | 337 | João Monteiro* | Nuno Morais | South Racing Can-Am | 65:55:53 | + 11:56:06 |
| 14 | 327 | Christophe Cresp* | Jean Brucy | MMP Compétition | 66:47:53 | + 12:48:06 |
| 15 | 347 | Lukas Lauda* | Stefan Henken | South Racing Can-Am | 67:18:33 | + 13:18:46 |
| 16 | 340 | Oscar Ral Verdu* | Xavier Blanco | Buggy Masters Team | 68:37:45 | + 14:37:58 |
| 17 | 322 | Claudie Tanghe* | Kevin Tanghe | GRallyTeam | 69:29:34 | + 15:29:47 |
| 18 | 325 | Xavier Foj* | Antonio Angulo | Foj Motorsport | 74:08:25 | + 20:08:38 |
| 19 | 321 | Annett Quandt* | Annie Seel | X-raid Yamaha Supported Team | 76:15:30 | + 22:15:43 |
| 20 | 339 | Gert-Jan Van Der Valk* | Branco de Lange | Arcane Racing | 90:01:09 | + 36:01:22 |
| 21 | 332 | Javier Vélez* | Gaston Ariel Mattarucco | FN Speed Team | 97:20:44 | + 43:20:57 |
| 22 | 343 | Gunter Hinkelmann* | Fabrizio Bianchini | BBR Motorsport | 97:20:56 | + 43:21:09 |
| 23 | 369 | Jeffrey Otten* | Olaf Harmsen | Gaia Motorsports | 99:10:11 | + 45:10:24 |
| 24 | 333 | Benjamin Lattard* | Patrick Jimbert | MMP Compétition | 100:28:33 | + 46:28:46 |
| 25 | 317 | Mário Franco | Daniel Jordão | Franco Sport | 107:46:32 | + 53:46:45 |
| 26 | 326 | Glenn Brinkman* | Dale Moscatt | PH Sport | 122:13:23 | + 68:13:36 |
| 27 | 329 | Dania Akeel | Stéphane Duplé | Wevers Sport | 133:41:27 | + 79:41:40 |
| 28 | 308 | David Zille | Sebastian Cesana | South Racing Can-Am | 135:01:17 | + 81:01:30 |
| DNF | 304 | Marek Goczał | Maciej Marton | EnergyLandia Rally Team | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 309 | Ignacio Casale* | Álvaro Leon | X-raid Yamaha Supported Team | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 314 | Kris Meeke* | Wouter Rosegaar | GRallyTeam | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 330 | Jordi Segura* | Sergi Brugué | FN Speed Team | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 331 | Khalid Aljafla* | Andrei Rudnitski | Aljafla Racing | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 334 | Pál Lónyai* | Filippo Ippolito | X-raid Yamaha Supported Team | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 345 | Freddy Fast* | Alexander Toril | South Racing Can-Am | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 346 | Manuel Plaza Pérez* | Marta Plaza Vázquez | Sodicars Racing | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 349 | Antonio Garcia Coma* | Aran Sol I Juanola | ASM Motorsport | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 350 | Roger Grouwels* | Ronald van Nederpelt | Dakar Team Spierings RaceArt | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 351 | Edwin Opstelten* | Henny van Kouwen | Gaia Motorsports | DNF | N/A |
| DNF | 352 | Alexander Peters* | Wouter de Graaff | Arcane Racing | DNF | N/A |
| DSQ | 302 | Eryk Goczał | Oriol Mena | EnergyLandia Rally Team | DSQ | N/A |
| DSQ | 310 | Michał Goczał | Szymon Gospodarczyk | EnergyLandia Rally Team | DSQ | N/A |
Challenger stage winners
| Stage | Driver | Time |
| Prologue | Kris Meeke* | 17:55.9 |
| Stage #1 | Marek Goczał | 5:21:56 |
| Stage #2 | Mitch Guthrie | 4:28:17 |
| Stage #3 | Mitch Guthrie | 4:39:08 |
| Stage #4 | Ignacio Casale* | 3:12:30 |
| Stage #5 | Francisco López Contardo* | 1:40:47 |
| Stage #6 | Cristina Gutiérrez* | 8:09:40 |
| Stage #7 | Mitch Guthrie | 5:35:09 |
| Stage #8 | Saleh Al-Saif* | 3:35:28 |
| Stage #9 | Nicolás Cavigliasso | 4:47:58 |
| Stage #10 | Marcelo Gastaldi | 3:44:13 |
| Stage #11 | Nicolás Cavigliasso | 5:19:13 |
| Stage #12 | Marcelo Gastaldi | 1:55:22 |
W2RC Challenger standings
For readability, competitors registered for the championship who have yet to earn points are not listed.
Drivers’ standings
| Rank | Driver | Points | Margin |
| 1 | Mitch Guthrie | 85 | Leader |
| 2 | Rokas Baciuška | 68 | – 17 |
| 3 | Marcelo Gastaldi | 52 | – 33 |
| 4 | Nicolás Cavigliasso | 50 | – 35 |
| 5 | Austin Jones | 48 | – 37 |
| 6 | Ricardo Porém | 32 | – 53 |
| 7 | Dania Akeel | 22 | – 63 |
| 8 | Mario Franco | 20 | – 65 |
| 9 | David Zille | 19 | – 66 |
Co-drivers’ standings
| Rank | Co-Driver | Points | Margin |
| 1 | Kellon Walch | 85 | Leader |
| 2 | Oriol Vidal | 68 | – 17 |
| 3 | Carlos Sachs | 52 | – 33 |
| 4 | Valentina Pertegarini | 50 | – 35 |
| 5 | Gustavo Gugelmin | 48 | – 37 |
| 6 | Augusto Sanz | 32 | – 53 |
| 7 | Stéphane Duplé | 22 | – 63 |
| 8 | Daniel Jordao | 20 | – 65 |
| 9 | Sebastian Cesana | 19 | – 66 |
